Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[AJ_Radio]

5 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

I don't understand that, as you were (are still?) into the Assassins Creed series which is about as open world as it gets and when I saw Ghost of whatever, it looked like the same formula. For me, it's one of those games I'll wait for it to go under $20 or roll the dice that it'll be on PS+. 

I both love and hate Assassins Creed. Especially with Valhalla coming out. Can’t stand that bitch Layla Hassan in the present day storyline. 
 

The Assassin vs Templar conflict? Doesn’t really matter much anymore, and it hasn’t been good for a long time. 
 

I treated Origins as a stand-alone game and I enjoyed it a lot more treating it as such. I will do the same with Odyssey. 
 

5 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

I am glad that I stayed pretty much spoiler free of TLOU2 and am probably in the 17% group that really enjoys it. I won't go into it much here, but I should be getting the platinum this week after I finish my survivor NG+ run. The amount of hatred between people that like it and don't like it remind me of our 2 party system here in the states...

I respect your opinion. Every other person was acting like a moron when they found the leak back in April. Bunch of coward assholes. It’s shit like that that has pushed me further away from gamers in general. 
 

Don’t even start with the two party system here. A complete joke. They’re a large part of why we’re in the mess we’re in right now. I’ll just stop here.

[Darling Baphomet]

On 7/27/2020 at 8:03 AM, Grotz99 said:

I am glad that I stayed pretty much spoiler free of TLOU2 and am probably in the 17% group that really enjoys it. I won't go into it much here, but I should be getting the platinum this week after I finish my survivor NG+ run. The amount of hatred between people that like it and don't like it remind me of our 2 party system here in the states...

 

From what I've seen, most people are enjoying the game - PSNP and related spheres would give you a different impression, but frankly, this site tends to skew towards a... very specific demographic, once which works overtime to victimize themselves. On Reddit (outside of the TLoU2 sub, which appears to be a hotbed for trolls) I saw almost nothing but praise for the game - the worst complaints I saw were stuff like, "great game, mediocre story." I think in general, aggression is much easier than self-examination and honest discussion - hence our political system, as you mentioned.

 

On 7/26/2020 at 3:56 PM, Cassylvania said:

That's my biggest complaint too. The formula for a lot of games these days seems to be to create a sandbox environment, plop down a bunch of junk to collect and menial tasks to complete, and then center it around an 8-10 hour story. That's a $10 game in my book. One of the reasons I praise the Souls series so much is because much of your time spent is learning the game, which seems to be a foreign concept for other developers. I think you'd like Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It does something similar, where it's an open world environment, but it isn't trying to throw things in your face every twenty seconds to try to impress you. I can appreciate a game that strokes you gently.

 

Is Kingdom Come good? I'd heard of it but was a bit scared of it because I've heard it can be brutal. I agree with all these open world games - I miss when open world was a distinguishing feature, e.g. games like Skyrim and Fallout which actually make use of their open world games - these days people just treat it as a gimmick to throw into every game. Which is fine, but some games really would have benefited from more linear level design.

 

On 7/27/2020 at 1:43 PM, Spaz said:

I both love and hate Assassins Creed. Especially with Valhalla coming out. Can’t stand that bitch Layla Hassan in the present day storyline. 
 

The Assassin vs Templar conflict? Doesn’t really matter much anymore, and it hasn’t been good for a long time. 
 

I treated Origins as a stand-alone game and I enjoyed it a lot more treating it as such. I will do the same with Odyssey.

 

Honestly, at this point, I feel like they'd do better to just ditch the overarching narrative altogether, since they don't seem to have much interest in furthering it. I had pretty much disavowed Ubisoft games up until recently, as I've been on a bit of a Far Cry binge, so I may finally get around to playing Black Flag and Origins.

 

[AJ_Radio]

33 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

Is Kingdom Come good? I'd heard of it but was a bit scared of it because I've heard it can be brutal. I agree with all these open world games - I miss when open world was a distinguishing feature, e.g. games like Skyrim and Fallout which actually make use of their open world games - these days people just treat it as a gimmick to throw into every game. Which is fine, but some games really would have benefited from more linear level design.

 

I have not played the game so you would have to ask Cassylvania that. Kingdom Come looks really intriguing, but if it doesn't run well on my PS4 I may just wait a bit on it. Plus I got too many games on my backlog still to add another time consuming game to the list.

 

I miss when open world was the exception and not the norm. Assassin's Creed II was great because not too many companies out there were doing open world. A lot of games back in the early 360/PS3 era were still linear, such as Bayonetta, Bioshock, Dead Space, Halo 3 and numerous others.

 

Now it's like..... every other AAA game HAS to be open world. I'm getting tired of it. That's why I frowned when I learned a year ago that Ghosts of Tsushima was going to be open world. Death Stranding is another open world game, most of the big selling PS4 exclusives from 2017 forward have all been open world. Then when something like Detroit: Become Human or a game Supermassive Games developed for the PS4 comes out, people shit on it. Like what the fuck you guys...

 

Then I see the new Spider-Man game coming for the PlayStation 5 starring Miles. You're going to star a high school/college aged kid to be the protagonist. Like cmon.

 

They're catering more to Generation Z than they are to Millennials. The video game industry dropped Generation X a long time ago.

[Together_Comic]

4 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

Is Kingdom Come good? I'd heard of it but was a bit scared of it because I've heard it can be brutal. I agree with all these open world games - I miss when open world was a distinguishing feature, e.g. games like Skyrim and Fallout which actually make use of their open world games - these days people just treat it as a gimmick to throw into every game. Which is fine, but some games really would have benefited from more linear level design.

 

Full Disclosure, I've played through Kingdom Come, but haven't done the stuff for the platinum as of now.

 

What Kingdom Come does well it does really well.  It is (mostly) historically accurate RPG that is clear a lot of thought and time went into.  The story is good, but what I enjoy the most is how little the world cares about your character.  In Skyrim and similar games, often pretty early on you turn out to be some hero fated to save the world. Whether youre the dragonborn the emperor's escape route goes through your cell or you are gifted with the ability to enter a tv set and fight with incarnations of devils your actions are what the game bends around.  Here the world could care less about you.  You are a peasant and are mostly treated as such.  Shop keeps will look down on you if your dirty or smell, quest givers will just leave if you make them wait to long, you have to eat, you can't even read to start off.  Its a really immersive experience.

 

The combat is polarizing.  Generally you either love it or hate it.  It tries its best to mimic the ages sword play and does that to moderate success.  Even still it can be admittedly frustrating when Henry swings his sword in a way you don't want him too and you get cut down and die. But you don't have to do combat if you don't really want to (with a few exceptions) and thats part of the fun.

 

The downsides of the game are the save system, the bugs, and the trophies.  The save system in and of itself isn't completely terrible.  The game will save anytime you sleep in a bed, at certain "check points" at lower difficulties, or use a specific potion that will save the game manually.  Its basically to prevent save scumming, but in reality it just turns into a logistical nightmare when you have other responsibilities especially since some quests can just outright fail if you try to leave the game running. While you run an errand or some such.  The game has largely been updated and the bugs aren't nearly as bad as they were on release, but you can still get some pop in, and other weird occurrences. The Trophies are obnoxious as well.  Many of them lock out others so that it requires multiple playthroughs of this rather long winded game. For example, there are trophies for killing 200 people, but also a trophy for killing no one.  One for completing certain quest lines that end in sex and one for not having sex, etc.  You get the idea.  I feel like this detracts from the games real strength, the immersion, and kinda forces you to play through the game a certain way if you want to be efficient with trophies.  I played through it blind and loved it, but if you insist on doing the game all at once, I imagine you will be hearing Henry's quips in your sleep. 

 

~TC

[Rally-Vincent---]

4 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

Is Kingdom Come good? I'd heard of it but was a bit scared of it because I've heard it can be brutal. I agree with all these open world games - I miss when open world was a distinguishing feature, e.g. games like Skyrim and Fallout which actually make use of their open world games - these days people just treat it as a gimmick to throw into every game. Which is fine, but some games really would have benefited from more linear level design.

 

I enjoyed Kingdom Come quite a lot. You'll need to learn how to fight properly, because fighting is not only dependent on your skill level - you need to apply your knowledge correctly. There is plenty of opportunity to learn how to fight, the fighting teacher actually has some use in this game. Other than that, the usual RPG experience should be enough to master the game.

 

Beware, though, that the game still has bugs, which may or may not accour. Some can be game breaking. My first playthrough was almost bug free, the sconed one had more bugs, one of them almost voiding the no-kill playthough. Luckily, the perks of my character build got me through.

 

I liked the attempt to make the gameplay more realistic than game-like. You can't just mindlessly swing your sword around expecting to slaughter a whole army. You have to shoot the bow without a recticle, but you get used to it quickly. It is an experience I don't want to miss.

[Cassylvania]

Wow, all the way on page 2, huh? Time to necro this thr...I mean, post some meaningful content.

 

On 7/31/2020 at 4:40 AM, Darling Baphomet said:

Is Kingdom Come good? I'd heard of it but was a bit scared of it because I've heard it can be brutal. I agree with all these open world games - I miss when open world was a distinguishing feature, e.g. games like Skyrim and Fallout which actually make use of their open world games - these days people just treat it as a gimmick to throw into every game. Which is fine, but some games really would have benefited from more linear level design.

 

I really liked KCD. If I had to describe it three words, I'd say it's Skyrim without magic. I agree with TC and Rally on all their points. I don't think I ran into any major bugs, but the difficulty is something you'll adjust to, very much like a Souls game. I don't think it's better than Dark Souls or even Demon's Souls, but I'd put it ahead of Skyrim for sure. I'm actually getting the itch to play another old school, open world RPG.

 

Hm. That's a short update. Quick! Let's platinum a game so I have something else to talk about.

 

Platinum #224 - Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

 

Now that's a sexy platinum image. Or it would be if it didn't have Morgana on it. Why's that cat gotta ruin everything?

 

So, yeah. I took the whole month of July off from Persona 5 Royal. Figured this would help me get back into it. It...mostly just made me sad that Colors Flying High isn't a track. You know I watch that intro every time I turn the game on? It's a self-imposed rule and I don't regret it one bit.

 

I'm not a fan of rhythm games. The music is great obviously, but I play games so I can relax and watch terrible performances on America's Got Talent. Games that require 100% of my attention at all times just don't have a place in my life anymore. So instead we're going to talk about how weird it is that you can explore other characters' rooms.

 

What's the point of that? I saw the game had a VR mode, so I'm thinking, "Oh, cool. So it can be like playing DDR." But no. It just lets you watch dances and creep on your friends in their dressing rooms, which are very small and really serve no point, except for a mini-scavenger hunt where the card I'm looking for is ALWAYS in the last place I search. The only room that is kinda cool to see is Joker's, and that's because you see it all the time in Persona 5 (but in third-person). You would think there'd be more going on in the girls' room, but it's just a bunch of shoes in Ann's and Makoto seems to have an unhealthy obsession with pandas.

 

I skipped over P4D to play this, but that one seems to be rare to find. It's never on sale and I'm not even sure there's a physical copy. No big loss, I guess, but my collection looks a little sad without it.

 

Well... You guys know what game is next.

[Together_Comic]

12 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

, except for a mini-scavenger hunt where the card I'm looking for is ALWAYS in the last place I search.

 

But Cass, everything is always in the last place you search

[Cassylvania]

On 8/12/2020 at 9:56 AM, Together_Comic said:

But Cass, everything is always in the last place you search

 

Blah blah blah. You know what I mean!

 

Anyway, I see Plague Inc. just dropped trousers and dumped a steaming pile of crap on my doorstep. Do these indie games think I enjoy their free content? Well, I do, but STOP RELEASING BROKEN DLC. That's three more trophies I'll never get.

 

I just got to the twist that I didn't even know was there in P5R. Good stuff. I have...a few issues with the plot holes that opens up, but maybe we'll discuss that more when we get to my review. For now, I think it's time we start thinking about how I'm going to finish six more games for GBN3. The only games I found for 0 are FF7R and Ghost of Sushi Mama, but let's be real. I'm not finishing either of those in under a month. You ever notice I go through a gaming slump every time I play Resident Evil something?

 

Well, whatever. Started Atelier Firis a couple of nights ago. I can see why it might be considered the black sheep of the series. I'm used to time limits, but not in an open world game. The last time I played something like that was Quest 64 and I hated it. This one seems fairly lenient, though...

 

Also, I find it weird that Firis' favorite food is rabbit.

[Rally-Vincent---]

13 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

 The only games I found for 0 are FF7R and Ghost of Sushi Mama, but let's be real. I'm not finishing either of those in under a month. You ever notice I go through a gaming slump every time I play Resident Evil something?

 

Va11-Hall-A ends in a 0. It's a short VN with mini games.

[Grotz99]

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

The only games I found for 0 are FF7R and Ghost of Sushi Mama, but let's be real. I'm not finishing either of those in under a month.

I did The Last of Us Part II, but I know your stance on that one. Seems like 0 gets a lot of bigger games, as I'm playing through KH2 right now and that is a 0 as well.

 

Looks like you are right about where I am with Phoenix Wright. I just play a little before bed each night and I'm enjoying it, but it is taking a lot longer than I expected. 

[AJ_Radio]

On 8/14/2020 at 11:31 AM, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, I see Plague Inc. just dropped trousers and dumped a steaming pile of crap on my doorstep. Do these indie games think I enjoy their free content? Well, I do, but STOP RELEASING BROKEN DLC. That's three more trophies I'll never get.

 

Just another reason why I am not a 100 percent completionist.

[Cassylvania]

On 8/14/2020 at 2:50 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Va11-Hall-A ends in a 0. It's a short VN with mini games.

 

Looks good. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

On 8/14/2020 at 4:06 PM, Grotz99 said:

Looks like you are right about where I am with Phoenix Wright. I just play a little before bed each night and I'm enjoying it, but it is taking a lot longer than I expected. 

 

It really is a good game to play for a couple hours each night. I'm going to try to get back into it as soon as I finish these events.

 

On 8/25/2020 at 0:19 AM, Spaz said:

Just another reason why I am not a 100 percent completionist.

 

Not only did they release broken trophies, but it sounds like they broke all the trophies in the base game too. What a royal fuck up. ?

 

Speaking of royal...

 

Platinum #225 - Persona 5 Royal

 

I know you're all thinking, "Where the fuck has Cass been lately?" Well, guys. I've been playing this. This monstrosity of a game has eaten up most of my summer. While the rest of the world has been complaining about having to wear a mask and stay indoors, I've been donning my Phantom Thief every day and playing a game that still felt fresh after 150+ hours. I'm not even sure where to begin with this one.

 

So let's begin by pretending you haven't taken the plunge down the rabbit hole. If you've never played Persona 5 before, the entire game takes place over the course of about a year. I guess the Royal version adds a few extra weeks' worth of content. Most days can be broken into three segments: morning, afternoon, and evening. In the morning, you attend school. Not much happens here. Sometimes one of your teachers will ask a question relevant to the class (and the overall themes of the game, which is a nice touch, but it reminds me of how every NPC in Pokemon games will talk about Pokemon, even though they presumably have other things going on in their lives) or throw chalk at you. In the afternoon, you are usually free to do one of several activities. This is where it becomes like an Atelier game. In Atelier, time "passes" whenever you travel, battle, gather resources, synthesize, or rest. In P5R, you can travel and shop as much as you want, but most other activities will move time forward. That means you can only do ONE activity per afternoon. You could hang out with a friend OR study OR visit a Palace/Mementos OR work a part-time job (that you hilariously can't be fired from, even if you never show up). Each of them has a benefit, such as increasing your skills or getting someone to like you more, but at the cost of ignoring other skills and friends. This could drive you batty if you have OCD, but the game generally gives you enough time to do everything and you can't "lose" skills and friendships you've built up. It's really just a matter of figuring out what matters the most to you at that point in the game. Do you hang out with Yusuke because this is one of those rare days he is available, or do you hit up the batting cages to work on your Proficiency? In the original game, I guess you had to max out everything for trophies, but the Royal version made it a lot simpler. I didn't feel any pressure at all.

 

You're more restricted in what you can do in the evening. Initially, you can only do the activities that are available in your home, but eventually you can get out and enjoy the night life. With absolutely nothing standing in your way.

 

 

There's also the JRPG element of the game. I won't go into detail about this. The game explains everything to you in pain-staking detail. (This is actually my biggest gripe with the game. EVERYTHING needs to be discussed ad nauseam.) All you really need to know is your party members are your friends, Personas are magic attacks, and time passes whenever you leave a Palace, which is the easiest way to restore your health and mana. There are a few difficulty choices that you can change between freely, but I settled for Easy...and then eventually dropped it down to Safe because I was more interested in the story than the combat. Unfortunately, you're stuck with Safe once you enable it. I did it at the fifth boss because he's a piece of shit, but apparently that makes him harder because you can do more damage at the highest difficulty...which you kinda need to do thanks to his stupid gimmick. I was glad to see other people hated him as much as me. You can see the TWO MONTH gap on my profile from where I started that Palace to when I finished it.

 

OK. So, that's more or less the game. What are my thoughts?

 

First, high school is a weird time. I relate to Joker. I was the new guy at my high school too. I didn't like some of my teachers. One of them used to throw Starburst at kids. I used to sit there in class and draw pictures of my teacher as literal monsters, giving them nicknames like The Blob and Manbunasaurus. I'm not proud of this. I'm a terrible person. But guys, nobody drove me up a wall more than our principal. This guy was a tyrant. I mean, as much of a tyrant as one can be to a sixteen-year-old. He didn't let us wear hats or backpacks or short skirts or those awesome shoes that turned into roller skates. You remember Heelys? We had it so easy as kids...

 

Anyway, one fateful day in my senior year, some kid took a fork from the cafeteria and jammed it into the wall. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me how either. He was probably bored and thought it would be funny. But he left the thing sticking in the wall and the principal found out. Now, imagine you're my principal. How would you react in that situation? Let's do this Persona style! Would you...

 

     A. Ignore it, because there are bigger problems in the school, like kids bringing weapons and drugs to class.

     B. Lecture the student body about the proper use of kitchen utensils.

     C. Punish the culprit with a mild detention sentence.

     D. Ban all forks and knives from the cafeteria and assign teachers to patrol the area and confiscate any non-approved silverware during lunch period.

 

If you answered D... Congratulations. You might be a tyrant too. This...did not go over well. Besides making it impossible to eat anything except soup and applesauce, the kids began to revolt. By the end of the first week, the entire student body had broken down into two groups: the spooners and the forkers. If you were a spooner, it meant you were an obedient laptop for the tyrannical overlords. If you were a forker, you rejected their rule and were a part of the resistance. If you didn't choose a side, you were a sporker and everybody hated you. (Basically, it was like politics today, but dumber.)

 

Now, I was a quiet person. I just wanted to draw. But, you know, I've always had a bit of a rebellious side in me and I like to point out some of the absurdities in the world in which I live. I'm not going to say that I was very vocal in my opinion on the situation, but I did think it'd be funny to draw our principal as Darth Vader and have him holding a giant fork light saber with the caption, "MAY THE FORKS BE WITH YOU." Some kids next to me thought it was funny, and they showed it to some people who also thought it was funny... And, the next day, I came into school and there were hundreds of these posters plastered up and down the hallway. Now, I'm not the one who put them there, but that did begin my reign as a Phantom Thief.

 

You see, guys. I was the faceless voice of the resistance. I had mocked the scourge of the school and walked away unscathed because I was not on the list of usual suspects. Any other good, rule-abiding Makoto would have stopped there. I decided to make a whole book about it. Yes, I wrote an entire book, including a GIANT MOVIE PROMO POSTER, of all my teachers and classmates as Star Wars characters. My popularity skyrocketed. Within a couple of months, I had half of the student body and at least a dozen teachers fully aware of this satirical piece of fiction. I will never know how I didn't get in trouble. I was smart enough to include a disclaimer, but it's not like it wasn't obvious that I was ripping on everybody I knew. The principal could have easily expelled me if he had found out.

 

But that is the legacy I left behind. Am I proud of it? Am I ashamed? Does it even matter? I think, for someone who was always very quiet up to that point (and has more or less been like that since), it was new. Maybe it sounds ridiculous to you guys -- and it kinda does to me now too -- but I remember being so nervous and so excited every day that I was doing something that people wanted but could also destroy me for. I had people talking to me that hadn't acknowledged me since my freshman year. I was the talk of the school for those few months and it made me feel like a god. It was honestly one of the best times in my life.

 

I say all this because I really, really, really like the plot this game. Yes, it's Japanese. Yes, it's wacky. Yes, it holds your hand way too much, but it does a wonderful job of drawing you into this world and making you care about the people you interact with. Even though I only needed to max one Confidant for a trophy, I tried to max out everybody. (Except Justine and Caroline because nobody got time for that.)

 

Now, because this is a story-based RPG, you know what we have to do. That’s right! It’s time for everybody’s favorite game show… CHOOSE. YOUR. WAIFU. *applause*

 

 

Let’s meet our lovely contestants. First up, we have the beautiful artist Yusuke. She might look like Spock and have the personality of a 65-year-old stalker on the internet, but…what do you mean Yusuke is a guy? Don’t tell me Morgana is too. Dammit, people.

 

In all seriousness, though, I don't think you can go wrong. They fleshed out this game enough that no one girl feels like the "canon" waifu. Usually with games like this, you feel the writers are pushing you towards the first person with breasts to join your team, but I think you could make an argument for any of them -- even the girls who aren't party members. I think I knew the whole time I was going to end up with the redhead, but I toyed with Ann and Makoto for a while. And the doctor lady was the first Confidant I maxed out. I can't even remember her name now. Haru is OK, but she joins so late, and Futaba is like 12 years old.

 

So, who's my waifu? None of the above. It's my boy Ryuji. Bros before hos and this dude has had my back since the beginning. We ate together, bathed together, and got shit on by all the girls. (No, it’s not that kind of game.) I don't know why everyone puts Ryuji down. He was always in a good mood and had something encouraging to say. (A good runner-up for best waifu is the kid who sits behind you in class. Anybody who doesn't snitch to the teacher that you're keeping a cat in your desk is OK in my book.)

 

VA work for the main and secondary characters in this game is great, but it does diminish when you hear some of the nameless NPCs. I think it would've been better to not include those at all. Also, there's this awkward thing where your friends are studying "English" in school, but they're speaking English, so it just comes across as weird. I'm not sure how else they could have dealt with that, since the game is clearly intended to take place in Japan and they're probably canonically speaking Japanese.

 

I didn't expect to like the VA work as much as I did, but it's REALLY good. Some of them (like Ann) had a LOT of lines to read. I don't expect much from Japanese games like this. Usually I feel like you could replace one voice actor with another and it wouldn't change the overall feel of that character, but that's not the case here. Ann sounds like a ditzy beauty queen, Makoto sounds like a stuck-up student council president, Yusuke sounds like a starving artist, and even Morgana sounds like what I imagine a human-turned-cat would sound like.

 

 

The animations are beautiful. I think that’s the first thing anybody would notice about this game. It oozes style. I wish there were more cut scenes, but they were always a treat when I got to see one. I think the coolest part is the intro, though. I made it a rule that every time I start the game, I have to let the entire intro play out. I don't regret that one bit. I'm still not sick of that animation or the music.

 

Oh, yeah. The music. Did I mention how awesome it is? No, of course not. Because I can't possibly praise this game enough. While I really didn't care for P5D, that's just because I don't like rhythm games. Everything here fits into one really nice, well-designed, well-polished package.

 

I wish I could talk more about the story, but those of you who have played the game already know and those of you who haven't need to find out for yourself. It's something that I think will grow on you. It took me maybe a dozen or so hours before everything started clicking. I know that might seem pretty long into a playthrough to start to appreciate the story, but you'll be in this for the long haul. It's worth the slow start. More than ever, I pity the people who try to rush the platinum or skip text.

 

I don't know what to do with my life now.

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Cassylvania

[AJ_Radio]

It looked like Plague wasn't going to get any more trophies. Sometimes I get fooled.

 

You might have to go down on your knees and beg the developers constantly until they make a patch that fixes the trophies. Going too far into the extremes obviously, but you get the point.

 

I don't know much of anything about Persona, so can't really say much other than a simple congratz.

[Jens]

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I don't know what to do with my life now.

 

I mean... there is the separate trophy list for the original Persona 5 

But I immediately get what you're saying. Persona 5 was quite the game changer for me too. When the credits come up after more than 150 hours and your first thought is "Aww... it's over already?" you might have found THE winner. And that with me not really being into Anime stuff whatsoever.

 

But you'll be fine. You still have so many Ateliers to run and bread to synthesize. You won't run out of options in the near distant future

[Mori]

I thoroughly enjoyed your rebellious highschool story.  

Congratz on the plat and good luck with finding sth. new to entertain yourself. I think we've all been there before.

[realm722]

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

Platinum #225 - Persona 5 Royal

 

I In the original game, I guess you had to max out everything for trophies, but the Royal version made it a lot simpler. I didn't feel any pressure at all.

--snip---

So, who's my waifu? None of the above. It's my boy Ryuji. Bros before hos and this dude has had my back since the beginning. We ate together, bathed together, and got shit on by all the girls. (No, it’s not that kind of game.) I don't know why everyone puts Ryuji down. He was always in a good mood and had something encouraging to say. (A good runner-up for best waifu is the kid who sits behind you in class. Anybody who doesn't snitch to the teacher that you're keeping a cat in your desk is OK in my book.)

 

VA work for the main and secondary characters in this game is great, but it does diminish when you hear some of the nameless NPCs. I think it would've been better to not include those at all. Also, there's this awkward thing where your friends are studying "English" in school, but they're speaking English, so it just comes across as weird. I'm not sure how else they could have dealt with that, since the game is clearly intended to take place in Japan and they're probably canonically speaking Japanese.

 

I didn't expect to like the VA work as much as I did, but it's REALLY good. Some of them (like Ann) had a LOT of lines to read. I don't expect much from Japanese games like this. Usually I feel like you could replace one voice actor with another and it wouldn't change the overall feel of that character, but that's not the case here. Ann sounds like a ditzy beauty queen, Makoto sounds like a stuck-up student council president, Yusuke sounds like a starving artist, and even Morgana sounds like what I imagine a human-turned-cat would sound like.

The animations are beautiful. I think that’s the first thing anybody would notice about this game. It oozes style. I wish there were more cut scenes, but they were always a treat when I got to see one. I think the coolest part is the intro, though. I made it a rule that every time I start the game, I have to let the entire intro play out. I don't regret that one bit. I'm still not sick of that animation or the music.

---snip---

The animations are beautiful. I think that’s the first thing anybody would notice about this game. It oozes style. I wish there were more cut scenes, but they were always a treat when I got to see one. I think the coolest part is the intro, though. I made it a rule that every time I start the game, I have to let the entire intro play out. I don't regret that one bit. I'm still not sick of that animation or the music.

Oh, yeah. The music. Did I mention how awesome it is? No, of course not. Because I can't possibly praise this game enough. While I really didn't care for P5D, that's just because I don't like rhythm games. Everything here fits into one really nice, well-designed, well-polished package.

 

Woo I'be been waiting for this review! Persona 5's my #1 game of the generation and I'm glad to see you enjoy it. Just a few points I wanted to mention!

 

1) I think the original trophy list was sadly a lot more brutal with all it asked you to do. Read every book, play every video game, complete every request(some missables), etc... I will say that the greatest guide I've ever seen/used on this website is optinooby's Persona 5 100% walkthrough. The sheer amount of work and effort put into that thing is nuts - and given it's 190k+ views I imagine it's single-handedly got the plat for hundreds of users. 

 

2) You actually brought up a really good point about the voice acting that as someone who hasn't played TOO many Japanese games didn't notice on my first time through. They did an excellent job making the characters really personify their dialogue/personalities. Ryuji feels like a bit of a meathead bro "HEY GUYS WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO AS THE PHANTOM THIEVES?" *in the middle of a restaurant*. As someone who's currently playing through Valkyria Chronicles (i have lots to say), this is one of those things where I wish the game was better at... particularly with the main two leads (Welkin & Alicia). I kinda wish Welkin had bene the strong silent type, ala Joker, since yanno, he's a military lieutenant and instead he sounds like an airhead who should be picking strawberries about 3,000 miles away from the frontlines. 

 

3) You said it best... this game OOZES style in places where other games don't even have it. I hope if anything games learned from the success of P5 is that. It really does have a lasting impression on the player. 

[Rally-Vincent---]

16 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 The principal could have easily expelled me if he had found out.

 

I guess he never saw it coming...

 

Also: Makoto = best girl.

[Briste]

22 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, one fateful day in my senior year, some kid took a fork from the cafeteria and jammed it into the wall. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me how either. He was probably bored and thought it would be funny. But he left the thing sticking in the wall and the principal found out.

The big thing kids did when I was in highschool was throw pencils at the ceiling tiles. Some of the ceilings were pretty high and the pencils couldn't be removed that easily. If you did it right, the sharp end would get stuck in the tile and stay there... forever it seemed. There was like 40 pencils in the lobby area and it drove our principal mad lol. I could never get one to stick, but it was a badge of honor if you did.

 

Good times....

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, Briste said:

The big thing kids did when I was in highschool was throw pencils at the ceiling tiles. Some of the ceilings were pretty high and the pencils couldn't be removed that easily. If you did it right, the sharp end would get stuck in the tile and stay there... forever it seemed. There was like 40 pencils in the lobby area and it drove our principal mad lol. I could never get one to stick, but it was a badge of honor if you did.

 

Good times....

 

We did some pretty neat things too, although with not as much creativity because I truly think you guys were some of the last people to really think outside the box growing up. My sister did some stuff when she went to highschool, but it's been so long ago I can't remember what she told me exactly.

 

Definitely more innocent times back then. America certainly became a lot more pussified since then. You probably couldn't do something like throw a pencil on the ceiling now without getting a harsh penalty for it. Definitely sounded like fun.

 

I got some older friends with some kids in highschool. Based on what they told me, those kids can't really do much of anything that is seen as juvenile without getting some sort of reprimand or penalty. Quite sad. Then there's all the cases now where teens are getting involved in protests and having their story being publicized.

 

Shoving kids into lockers was what a number of us did, which the schools incur harsher penalties on now.

[Alex_Hedgehog]

On 12.08.2020 at 3:21 AM, Cassylvania said:

I skipped over P4D to play this, but that one seems to be rare to find. It's never on sale and I'm not even sure there's a physical copy. No big loss, I guess, but my collection looks a little sad without it.

TBH Persona 4 Dancing is the best game from 2018 that I've played so to me it would be a big loss but to each his own as rhythm games are one of the best games to me & I guess that's a niche. I really loved it (even the story mode. I was really surprised by it being so interesting and good) and I would always totally recommend it but unless you've purchased the Persona Dancing bundle on PSN or bought the physical collection of Persona Dancing (3 & 5 have physical copies there while 4 is a PSN code) OR have a PS Vita (the only way to purchase the fourth one separately is to buy the Vita copy) then it's gonna be a bit pricey to have it AFAIK.

[Grotz99]

20 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Also: Makoto = best girl.

Going to have to agree with this. I really should go back and play NG+ for the rest of the trophies I'm missing.

[Cassylvania]

On 8/26/2020 at 1:01 AM, Spaz said:

You might have to go down on your knees and beg the developers constantly until they make a patch that fixes the trophies. Going too far into the extremes obviously, but you get the point.

 

I think Ndemic will eventually get to it. Indivisible is probably a long shot, though. I haven't really been following the news, but it sounds like everybody but the captain abandoned ship. Sucks because they had a lot of promised content upcoming.

 

On 8/26/2020 at 6:07 AM, Jens said:

I mean... there is the separate trophy list for the original Persona 5 

 

I think if I had done the original Persona 5 first, I'd consider stacking the Royal version, but I don't see much of a reason to do it the other way around. I'll just patiently wait for P6.

 

On 8/26/2020 at 8:10 AM, realm722 said:

2) You actually brought up a really good point about the voice acting that as someone who hasn't played TOO many Japanese games didn't notice on my first time through. They did an excellent job making the characters really personify their dialogue/personalities. Ryuji feels like a bit of a meathead bro "HEY GUYS WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO AS THE PHANTOM THIEVES?" *in the middle of a restaurant*. As someone who's currently playing through Valkyria Chronicles (i have lots to say), this is one of those things where I wish the game was better at... particularly with the main two leads (Welkin & Alicia). I kinda wish Welkin had bene the strong silent type, ala Joker, since yanno, he's a military lieutenant and instead he sounds like an airhead who should be picking strawberries about 3,000 miles away from the frontlines. 

 

I have a soft spot for Welkin and Alicia. I know their voices don't really fit their roles in the military, but I think they fit the characters, who are simply kids who get caught up in a war. My bigger issue is how almost everybody on their squad is a kid. At least Fire Emblem games try to give you a mentor or father figure that bites the dust early on so that your sudden promotion to lieutenant makes sense.

 

When Joker does speak, though, his voice is awesome. RAVAGE THEM!

 

14 hours ago, Spaz said:

Definitely more innocent times back then. America certainly became a lot more pussified since then. You probably couldn't do something like throw a pencil on the ceiling now without getting a harsh penalty for it. Definitely sounded like fun.

 

I dunno. We weren't really allowed to do stuff like that either. I remember one day, I had forgotten my homework in my locker and I went to school after hours to see if someone would let me in. The door was unlocked, so I opened it, looked around, didn't see anybody, and decided to just grab my stuff and leave. I was there for maybe two minutes. I think this was on a Saturday afternoon, but I guess somebody saw me and reported it because and I came in to school on Monday to find out the news that SOMEBODY HAD BROKEN INTO THE SCHOOL AND RULES WERE ABOUT TO BE CHANGED. Suddenly, they started putting huge chain locks on the doors and installing video cameras by every entrance. I'm pretty sure I single-handedly destroyed many of the freedoms we used to enjoy back in the day.

 

You're welcome.

 

13 hours ago, Alex_Hedgehog said:

TBH Persona 4 Dancing is the best game from 2018 that I've played so to me it would be a big loss but to each his own as rhythm games are one of the best games to me & I guess that's a niche. I really loved it (even the story mode. I was really surprised by it being so interesting and good) and I would always totally recommend it but unless you've purchased the Persona Dancing bundle on PSN or bought the physical collection of Persona Dancing (3 & 5 have physical copies there while 4 is a PSN code) OR have a PS Vita (the only way to purchase the fourth one separately is to buy the Vita copy) then it's gonna be a bit pricey to have it AFAIK.

 

Oh, wow. Yeah, I'll eventually get to it. Maybe I'll even play P4 (or wait for a remaster). I keep hoping it'll go on sale on the PS store, but it never does. That Hidden Gems sale is about to break my wallet, though... Figure I'll spend $50 on it this weekend.

 

1 hour ago, Grotz99 said:

Going to have to agree with this. I really should go back and play NG+ for the rest of the trophies I'm missing.

 

You Makoto lovers...

 

Nah, she's pretty great. If I hadn't felt so bad for Kasumi in the post-game, I would've dated her. (In fact, if I knew you could date more than one girl, I would've dated them all just for the laughs. ?) I had Makoto sitting at Rank 8 for a long time while I made my choice.

 

I started playing a weird new game. Just trying to knock out five quick ones for GBN3, so expect some unusual entries over the next couple of weeks. Then we'll take stock of these unfinished trophies. We might just have to accept that some games will never be completed.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Cassylvania

[Rally-Vincent---]

@Cassylvania Why does your trophy card link to your profile sorted A - Z, dammit? That's why I get that weird sorting when I go to your game page when I am at home (where I am logged in). Always wondered why it was sorted different all the time.

[Cassylvania]

1 minute ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

@Cassylvania Why does your trophy card link to your profile sorted A - Z, dammit? That's why I get that weird sorting when I go to your game page when I am at home (where I am logged in). Always wondered why it was sorted different all the time.

 

Oh, that's how I set it up. Do you not like that? Whenever I look at someone else's profile, I always change it to alphabetical because that just makes the games easier to scan through visually. (Then I usually scroll to the very bottom and see if they have XCOM because that's how I judge people.)

 

How I figured out how to do that is beyond me.

[Rally-Vincent---]

1 minute ago, Cassylvania said:

 

Oh, that's how I set it up. Do you not like that?

 

No, I don't. I prefer to see it sorted by last played at the top so I can see what's happening on a profile and the game history (what has been played when). I change profiles to last played when I look at them.